


A kiss...

by Wrathofscribbles



Series: Kisses... [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 18:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16143437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: ... because time's run out.





	A kiss...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HisGlasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisGlasses/gifts).



> **Big bold reminder that Final Fantasy XV and all of its content is property of Square Enix.** I just like to play in the sandpit they've created for the fans.
> 
> If this looks familiar to you, that's because it is. This used to be part of a multi-chapter pain-in-my ass, but I've decided to take that down and make every chapter a standalone oneshot. Apologies for any confusion caused.
> 
> Prompts are from [this list](https://wrathofscribbles.tumblr.com/post/177169224758/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-i-will-write-a).

Nyx Ulric, she discovers, is a man of carefully chosen words and neutral expressions, a soldier even Ravus and his pedantic ways would struggle to find issue with.  At ease in his own skin, relaxed around royalty in a manner that _just_  skirts the line of insubordination, easily overlooked with his roguish smirk and excellent recall.  Assigned as her personal guard for the duration of her stay prior to the treaty signing - a gesture of good faith between two warring nations, a willing pawn in their political maneuvering if it will secure a lasting _peace_  - even though the King can spare precious few with Niflheim at his city’s doorstep.

She requests a tour of the city, issues the command that no corner be left unseen, and he complies with a grand bow and murmured “as my Lady wishes.”  A minor tease, to be sure, but one that brings genuine laughter to her lips, gathering up her skirts and tucking her hand around the offered elbow before they set off on a grand adventure to sample the treasures Insomnia has to offer.

Three days she spends in his company, walking alongside him and yet kept under his watchful eye.  Three days her safety is accountable to just one man and yet it’s the safest she’s been in a lifetime, even with a Magitek army ready and waiting to surround her at a moment’s notice and the snap of the Accursed’s fingers.  Nyx doesn’t loom and he doesn’t stifle, simply orbits around her as he guides her from royalty to immigrant to beggar, from street to school to orchards, from the Wall keeping the Scourge at bay to the silent sentinels strategically positioned around the city and clad in the armour they were buried in, from under the bridges and the pond Noctis fell into as a child to the park where Prompto met Pryna all those years ago and the tallest tower.  He speaks of his experience as a Glaive, of the skirmishes that have led to his extensive knowledge of the city and her layout, all the nooks and crannies and areas perfect for an ambush, of the shifting regard the moment he strips off his uniform and becomes a regular civilian, which restaurants have the most authentic menu and the shops to avoid for their ridiculously high prices.  He takes her wandering eye in stride, daring to enter the wilds of women’s clothing with her, offering honest opinions and horror at whatever she plucks from the displays and if she’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t do so to bulk up her wardrobe at all (though it could do with a splash of colour), but simply to watch him splutter at the atrocities burning their likeness into his memory, from clashing neon to inaccurate animal prints to one very creative outfit fit to bursting with chocobo feathers dyed the colour of the rainbow.

For three days he is her guide, her protector, a friendly face and welcome chatter in a foreign world that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself in her presence and despite his flirtatious charm - on which many ladies flutter and swoon - he is unfailingly polite with her, the perfect gentleman, considerate and kind and with him, _only_  him, she is _Lunafreya_  first and _Princess_  second, _Oracle_... never.

* * *

“Have a safe trip back home, Lady Lunafreya,” he says, pitched low for her ears alone, one arm behind his back and the other lifting her hand as he bends at the waist, brushes his lips across her knuckles in a passing glance that sends a flutter of heat over her skin, a flush in her cheeks.

“You won’t be accompanying me?”

“Afraid not!  Duty calls elsewhere, but worry not.  You might not have my pretty face to gaze upon on the trip back, but I promise Crowe is a lean, mean, magic machine.  She’ll keep you safe.”

A voice more powerful than her own pulls his attention away after that and she allows herself one solitary sip of champagne, watching those braids swing over his shoulder as he tilts his head towards the King’s, for words she cannot read from here, and she doesn’t get a chance to correct him.

* * *

“'s touch embarrassing.  You... seeing me... like this,” he says, and his voice is a ragged, raspy, ruined thing to what she’d heard only hours ago, what feels like _years_  ago for all that has transpired since, so much betrayal and wreckage and _fire_  that she can’t breathe for the smoke of it all.  So much like home, when she was ripped from a childhood innocence and watched her mother die.

And here she is forced to watch again, helpless except to cradle his broken body in her arms, the soothing touch of her magic an agony on his blistered skin, at odds with the power of Kings turning him to ash from the inside out.  He grits his teeth through it, ever the soldier, slaps a grin on his face that only serves to pull those ghastly wounds wider, embers glowing where blood is absent.

“Shh, save your strength.”

“No point... m’time’s done - take the... ring.  To Noctis.”

“You were supposed to meet us in Altissia, you silly man.  Always playing the hero, isn’t that what Libertus said?”  The joke falls flat, as fast as the tears on her cheeks and it is _preposterous_ that she’s crying for someone she’s only just met and _yet_  he is one of the lightest, if damaged, souls she has encountered in a long, long time.  Kind, when the world presses him to be cruel.  He laughs anyway, a hacking thing that shakes him head to toe and forces his body into a tight curl of pain, steals the breath from him ‘til he gasps and _she cannot heal him_.  The gods themselves turn their back on her pleas.

“Run swift... fly far.”

“Nyx -”

_“Go, Lunafreya.”_

* * *

There is no beat where her palm rests, his chest silent and still, and all she can do for him now is touch her fingers to eyes with no spark and close them to the sight of a ruined city, the one he gave his life for.  She will go to Noctis and entrust the ring to him, for no other reason than its place as Nyx’s dying request.  But first...

A kiss to his forehead, and to each eyelid, a whisper to his ear she hopes he will hear in the beyond.

“May your soul find peace, wherever it now rests, Sir Ulric.”

_And maybe one day... you can call me Luna._


End file.
